Forest Certification is a sustainable forest management tool that was introduced after increasing concern of the detrimental forest development in the world. It is also a marketing concept aimed at encouraging the sale of timber from well managed forest.

Forest Certification is basically, a process of verifying that a forest is managed sustainably according to a given set of standards. There are a number of certification schemes in the world but one that is widely used and has proven to be genuine is the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification.

FSC certification has international Principles and Criteria (FSC Principles and Criteria) that form regional and national forest management standards. These Principles and Criteria set out the technical, economic, environmental and social requirements for good forest management.

FSC certification also involve Chain of Custody (CoC) certification where products are traced back to its origin (i.e. from the shop shelves to the forest floor) to ensure that these products are from genuinely from well managed forest, thus discouraging illegal and destructive forest management.

FPCD has been operating under these standards and have now decided to have forest management practices and products certified under FSC. Therefore it has developed the Indigenous Community Forestry (ICF) Certification Scheme.

If you decide to know more on FSC certification, you can visit their website: www.fsc.org